Quick look at Prey, Arkane Studio's new game that features space aliens and cups:

Transcript

Hello my dear beautiful bastards and welcome to Prey. Prey is the new game from Arkane Studios, the creators of Dishonored. It is a first person somewhat-open world space alien shooter with stealth and rpg mechanics along with a responsive and systemic environment that remembers your every fart.

Those of you who are a bit older may remember a game called Prey that also had aliens and a spaceship. This game has absolutely nothing to do with it but it is the same intellectual property that is owned by Bethesda. Some may say that's purely a coincidence but those same people believe that Apple are innovating by removing microphone jacks. It's pretty clear they're using the IP to get some extra attention to a game that is basically a new story in a new setting.

Speaking of the story, we know that the game takes place in 2030 on board a spaceship called Talos 1 owned by the Transtar company, a galactic network of microphone jack providers. The spaceship used to be a research center for strange alien lifeforms that got caught after murdering a few astronauts. After a while the aliens broke free and murdered the scientists upon which the ship was abandoned.

Years later the ship was reacquired and used to advance mankind with the help of the alien powers. Human greed and recklessness is timeless as the story of this game proves because the aliens broke free yet again and this is where Morgan comes into play. Morgan can be a man or a woman and they are the main protagonist of the game.

Turns out Morgan is actually a strange human who was being experimented on using the alien powers which means that as we play the game, we're able to learn and use whatever the aliens we encounter throw at us. Both literally and figuratively.

The developers said that the game will be completely open, any area can be accessed from anywhere and that there are no missions or separate levels. It will be possible to also go out of the ship into zero gravity and find secret entrances to various parts of the ship. We may even be able to encounter Matthew Mcconaughey, who knows.

What makes me particularly interested is the systemic nature of the environment and the enemies. Accessing different parts of the map at different times will result with different enemies and different situations. Scripted events will be rare and the AI behavior will depend on both you and the items around you. However, the unpredictable nature of the game can also be a bad thing. If the AI is idiotic then it will be difficult to stay satisfied with the events that transpire when you play. We all know that the AI in Dishonored suffered horribly sometimes so I think its fair to be a bit doubtful.

Since this is an Arkane game, stealth will also be a big part of it. Using different abilities and pathways will allow you to avoid enemies and complete objectives silently but remember, you must not fart, the enemies will both hear and smell you.

With most stealthy situations, sound becomes quite important and we have seen from the gameplay so far that the sound design is fucking amazing man. Mick Gordon is a master of space music and I have no worries that the sound will improve the game in every way. What is particularly interesting are sound triggers during the game. The sound changes based on the situation in the game. If the alien sees you, if they are aware of your presence but don't see you or if they're just a specific type of alien.

Speaking of types of aliens, we know about a few. The mimic is the most common one and they can transform into any object within the game. This is both freaky and awesome because the systemic nature of the game will make this completely unpredictable and guessing which item may potentially be an alien will probably make you scared, or at least a little paranoid.

We've got the weaver who is able to create entities. I don't know what this means but I can only assume it's not good and probably should be avoided and/or killed as soon as possible to prevent more entities from being created.

We got the telepath who is able to control other aliens and this immediately reminded me of the ability in Dishonored 2 which allowed you to kinda control the enemies. I'm fairly certain the programming for this alien has been borrowed from that ability.

Next we got the phantom who is able to emmit electrical charges that zap you in the face. As an electrician I'm immune to this alien so I'm not too concerned about him.

This graph showing the advancement of the aliens clearly goes further which means there's more of them to find in the world. In one of the gameplay videos we've seen an alien called the Nightmare that seems to be a mix between a phantom and spider in giant form.

To battle these aliens we will be able to use various weapons, both melee and ranged. We haven't had a chance to see too many of them because the developers did say that the weapons will be rather rare in the game. Those that we have seen are a wrench, a pistol, a shotgun and a gluegun. The gluegun wasn't initially meant to be a weapon at the station but since shits fucked, we are using it as such. It is able to glue enemies in place which allows for easier destruction, especially if they are one of the weaker ones. It can be used to close vents and allow passage through various areas and it can be shot at walls for some extra verticality and movement.

Another way of battling the aliens would be to use abilities. These abilities are called Neuromods and they come in 6 different types. Now some of these abilities are simply gadgets that can be used or thrown while the others are actual supernatural powers that allow you to do some pretty crazy shit. Transforming into a cup for example.

Just to quickly go back into the inventory, this system reminds me greatly of my favorite game, Resident Evil 4. I do hope we won't need to kill a large bass and use half of the space for it.

One of the gadgets that we can build can change items from a specific area into materials. These materials will be used to create objects in the fabricator. We will be able to create any object in the game and use it for whatever purpose it has. This allows for even more randomization in the world because you can simply throw the gadget all across a room and turn all objects into materials and then simply fabricate chairs and dildos or whatever and redesign the entire room. Then if a mimic comes here, they will transform into one of the nearby items. It just sounds very cool when you think about it.

The last thing I'd like to talk about is the rpg system in the game. As we could have noticed from the latest gameplay video, we are able to choose different options during different conversations. I must wonder how will this impact the game and story development because a large part of the game is discovering who you really are. Why are you a human test subject and are you even human? Perhaps talking to different characters and taking different approaches to the conversations may actually change the way you get upgrades or the way enemies interact with you. Maybe you can romance one of the aliens at some point? We don't really know enough about this aspect of the game to say much but we do know that it seems like an interesting game from a studio that already made some very decent games.

I just hope that the PC optimization is gonna be better than with Dishonored 2 because it actually ruined the game for me, by the time they fixed most problems I had 10 other games to play and life is hard when you're a youtuber, you constantly have to play new games man, it's actually a curse.

That is all from me but since I need this video to go over 10 minutes, I'll just leave you with some Prey gameplay and I hope to see you in the future videos. I have been Petard your glorious lord and may the blessings of Petardia eternally touch your butt.